The Women’s Alpine Skiing World Cup continues this weekend in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The first of the two races was a downhill on Saturday.

Like in all this season’s downhill races but one where she didn’t finish, the downhill World Cup leader Lindsey Vonn of the USA won in a dominant fashion. The winning margin of 1.51 seconds was bigger than in any of her wins this season.

Fabienne Suter of Switzerland achieved her third second place of the season, though far behind Vonn. She shared the downhill World Cup lead with Vonn after three races, yet missed the Zauchensee weekend due to a pulled hamstring and finished only 18th in Cortina but now returned to podium. She is in fourth place in the downhill standings, 207 points behind Vonn. Beating Vonn for the title seems impossible for anyone but Suter is only 35 points behind the second-placed Larisa Yurkiw with three races remaining.

Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany continued her good recent performances in Garmisch. During past three weeks, she has won two giant slaloms and had a third place in super-G. Now in her home country she achieved her season-first downhill podium by finishing third, only 0.06 seconds behind the second-placed Suter.

The Canadian Larisa Yurkiw couldn’t extend her podium streak of three races but missed the podium by 0.23 seconds to finish fourth. She is still having a good season; although the gap to Vonn is 172 points, she is in second place of the downhill standings.

USA’s Laurenne Ross was a positive surprise in the race. Starting with the bib No. 9, she remained in the lead until Yurkiw with the bib No. 18 beat her time. Ross finished the race in fifth place, 1.97 seconds from her countrywoman Vonn.

Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein started the season in a disappointing way in speed disciplines. Cortina d’Ampezzo two weeks ago was her best speed weekend of the season so far with a fourth place in downhill and a second place in super-G. She achieved a decent result in the Garmisch downhill with a sixth place (1.99 seconds from lead), even though mistakes on the bottom section cost her the podium chance.

Austria’s Cornelia Hütter came to Garmisch in third place of the downhill standings. After finishing the season’s first four downhills in top four, she finished 12th in Cortina two weeks ago. 12th was Hütter’s position also Garmisch and she was overtaken by Fabienne Suter in the downhill World Cup by one point.

Lara Gut of Switzerland has lost the overall World Cup lead to Lindsey Vonn and needed badly a good result in Garmisch to stay within touch of Vonn. However, she didn’t manage in that; instead she lost 2.86 seconds to Vonn and finished in 14th place. Vonn increased the overall World Cup lead by 82 points to 127 points. Meanwhile the third-placed Viktoria Rebensburg caught Gut by 42 points and trails now by 133 points.

Women’s World Cup continues in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on Sunday with a super-G race.